Day 10: Business As Usual

​At this point, I won't bore everyone with the typical morning details of a team breakfast; It's always just us eating, chatting, and cementing the plan for the day. Reminding everyone of who's in what room, the patient we'll be operating on, and the operation.

At the hospital, Alexis and I went on rounds, accompanied by Natasha, as we checked on patients from all the days prior. Gilda and Perepeta from the previous day of operating were doing significantly better, and each was beginning to move, and had the usual complaint of discomfort and pain. Abdu, the halo, was doing well, and reported some discomfort in the chest. We explained to him it's to be expected, as the halo vest is applying some pressure, and we sent him to get some x-rays for the day. Previous patients, such as Moses from Saturday, Jacinta from Friday, and Denis from a week prior, were all going to be discharged due to their well being or significant improvement. Others remained, due to long distance to travel, then the need to return, or they simply weren't quite ready to be sent off. Julius, from one week prior, unfortunately, in addition to his TB, developed another infection, and had begun treatment via IV and had to remain a few days longer so we could see the antibiotic doing it's job.

The OR had four cases planned for the day; Three women, Allen, Gudena, and Mary all had similar operations set for lumbar decompression fusions, and we had a man by the name of Victor set for a corpectormy and cervical instrumentation and fusion. In terms of length, we had a moderate day set before us. Each case, while time consuming, went extremely smoothly, leaving us with most of the evening to plan the next day of operating. The next day of operating, however, wasn't going to be nearly as short; we were planning six separate cases for Wednesday, but things never quite work out how you expect.

With operating done for the day, and the following day planned, we returned to the hotel, anxious to eat and get some well deserved sleep for the day, knowing we were planning many surgical cases for the following day.